Eight #4
I understood that, but still. “You realize you deserve to be happy as well.”
“Yeah, but once you become a parent, that’s your most important job. I have to be devoted to the welfare of my kids before any other consideration.”
“Except that, modeling a happy, healthy, equal relationship for your children shows them what they deserve in their own lives.”
At the stop sign, he turned to me. “No. Your parents’ marriage is supposed to show you what you don’t want, so then you go out and find the exact opposite. Everybody knows that.”
“That is so messed up,” I assured him, shaking my head.
“I should have known you’re not married,” he muttered.
“And why is that?”
“Happy marriage, healthy…whatever, gimme a break.”
“Listen, my boss just got married after waiting most of his adult life for his husband, so yeah, I’m a romantic. You have to have faith.”
He grunted. “It must be nice to look at the world through rose-colored glasses.”
“Better than ones that magnify every little problem you see.”
We were quiet for the rest of the surprisingly short drive. Even going from one side of town to the other did not take more than ten minutes.
“We’re here. Where do you want me to park?”
I scanned the lot, saw the car with the license plate I was after, and had him back up close to where we’d come in. “Okay, you stay here and?—”
“Absolutely not,” he snapped. “I won’t talk, but what if he’s got a gun or?—”
“Are you listening to yourself? Why do you think you’re not going in with me?”
He shook his head. “This is a nonstarter. You go only if I go.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“I don’t care,” he argued, passing me a pink Hello Kitty umbrella from the console between our seats.
“The hell is this?”
His smile was instant and huge. “That’s yours.” He then reached behind his seat and retrieved a large black one. “This is mine.”
“I would rather drown,” I said dramatically, getting out of the car and starting across the lot toward the rooms.
I heard the chirp of the car alarm behind me, and then he was there, hand on the back of my jacket, shielding me from the rain with his golf umbrella.
“You’re an ass,” I grumbled as his hand moved to my shoulder.
“Well, guess what,” he teased, “you bring it out of me.”
“Well, that’s terrible,” I said, darting forward to stand under the motel overhang.
“It’s not terrible,” he replied when he reached me, closing the umbrella and slipping behind me. “I haven’t been myself since Caitlyn left. I’ve been polite and quiet and distant, but today, I was barking orders and was, from what everyone said, a real prick.”
I looked over my shoulder at him. “You don’t get how that’s not great?”
His flashing grin made my stomach flip over, which was not good at all. “But see, that’s where you’re wrong. It was amazing, and all my guys were smiling like I haven’t seen them do in a long time. It’s like the sun finally came out.”
I rolled my eyes before facing forward.
“You don’t get it because you have no idea what I was like, what my kids were like, before you showed up. But things feel normal again. I feel like me.”
“That has to do with you and the kids, you get that, right?”
“I know exactly what it has to do with,” he said ominously.
I would have asked questions and then described how fixers cleared the road, that he was the one who would have to drive it even if it got bumpy again after I left, but at that moment, a door opened and Richard Conti stepped out.
When he saw me, there was not a sliver of concern in the man’s expression, but when Luke leaned around me, he jolted and ducked back inside his room.
“Interesting,” I said, bolting forward, reaching the door quickly and putting my shoulder into it. The fact that it gave so easily was terrible. “This is why I have long screws in all the deadbolts at home,” I explained to Luke.
“I appreciate these teachable moments,” he teased before trying to go around me into the room.
I wasn’t letting that happen and stepped in front of him, making certain he couldn’t get by even as I faced an empty room.
Moving fast, I took up position to the right of the bathroom door. “Mr. Conti, I need you to come out and speak to me.”
When Luke moved right in front of the door, I shoved him sideways to the left, to safety.
“What’re you doing?” he barked at me.
“Did it occur to you that he could have a gun, and if he does and shoots at the door…”
It didn’t even take him a second. “Oh,” he muttered, staying where he was.
“I’m not coming out to be killed.”
That was dramatic.
Luke looked at me and whispered, “ Killed ?”
“I have no idea,” I told him.
“I’m calling the police,” Conti called out.
“Well, that 911 call will have to be routed to the police department in Newcastle, because at the moment there’s no law enforcement here in Eena.”
Groan from the other side of the door.
“Neither of us will hurt you, Mr. Conti.”
“He will. Catie’s ex-husband will. He killed my brother.”
I huffed out a breath. “He didn’t kill anyone.”
“My brother is gone !” he cried from the other side of the door, sounding sad and broken, and my heart went out to him.
“Mr. Conti,” I began gently, pulling my ID and my conceal and carry, and sliding them both under the bathroom door, “my name is Nash Miller, and I was hired by Abel Roarke, Caitlyn Duchesne’s brother, to protect his ex-brother-in-law, as well as their three children, from the men she’s testifying against. We don’t know that they will try and pressure her that way, but I’m here as a preventive measure. ”
Nothing from the other side of the door.
“You do know your brother entered protective custody with Caitlyn, don’t you?”
The door was thrown open, and a handsome man, tall with black hair graying at the temples, heavy laugh lines, and sharp, angular features was staring at me in absolute shock.
“This was eighteen months ago,” I explained. “Did your brother not let you know before he entered the program?”
He glanced from me to Luke, then back to me. “He’s in witness protection?”
Evidently, he was having trouble grasping the facts.
“Yes. Mrs. Duchesne elected to take your brother with her instead of her ex-husband and her three children.”
Poor guy, he wobbled, and I reached out and grabbed him before he dropped to the floor. Between Luke and me, we got him to the bed. He was still holding on to my credentials, but Luke took those from him, almost snatching them out of his hand, and passed them to me.
“Be nice,” I whispered.
He made a tsking noise, and I couldn’t help smiling. This was a ridiculous situation where Luke, the man cheated on , needed to be nice to the brother of the man his wife had cheated with .
I took a seat on the twin bed opposite the one Richard was sitting on, and Luke joined me, close, as was his way, his thigh pressed to mine, both of us facing the very distraught man.
“I thought you killed my brother,” Richard told Luke. “And your wife.”
We were both quiet.
“I hired a PI to find them, and when he came back with nothing, no trace or leads…that’s when me and my whole family lost hope.”
“That’s understandable,” I replied, keeping my voice calm, gentle. “But you didn’t contact the FBI or even the police here in Eena?”
“I started here, and the police said they both just left.”
Luke scoffed. “Sounds like Wilson.”
From what I knew of the useless former chief of police, it certainly did.
“And the FBI’s stance, because Caitlyn and Marcello were having an affair, was that they ran off together and to please not waste their time.”
What had probably happened was that they’d accessed the information that the two people he was looking for were in protective custody, and that was the end of the conversation.
It would have been nice if they’d let Mr. Conti know his brother had been placed into WITSEC, but without a formal notification, they were not allowed to.
“So that’s when you hired the PI,” I surmised.
“Yes,” he said with a sigh and then turned to Luke. “We had no idea Caitlyn had other children. She didn’t mention them when she came to visit us.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“I don’t remember exactly. In the summer of last—no, the year before.”
Luke said, “She used to go on girls’ trips with Ronnie and Kara to Mexico. I guess she lied about that too.”
I took his hand in both of mine, needing to comfort him.
“It was a long time ago,” he said, bumping my shoulder as he held my hand.
“Still,” I murmured, giving him a squeeze before releasing him.
“We were all so excited he found her,” Richard said. “She was amazing, and she told us the two of you were separated when they met.”
“Another lie,” Luke explained, “but it doesn’t matter now. The important thing to know is that I didn’t do anything to your brother. He’s with my ex-wife in witness protection and has been for nearly two years now.”
Richard stared at him. “You’re certain?”
“We are,” I confirmed. “You cannot look for them. I’m certain that your PI, if they were any good at all, realized what finding no trace anywhere meant.”
“Oh. He did say there was no record, but when I asked if that could mean Mr. Duchesne did something to them, he couldn’t say either way.”
“Of course he couldn’t say because he didn’t want to put them in any danger.
We don’t either. I’m telling you what happened because normally, immediate family like you and your parents would be informed that your brother, their son, was entering the program.
I don’t know where the disconnect came from, unless Mr. Conti did not want you to be notified. ”
“No. He wouldn’t do that to my mother.”
“Then it’s an oversight,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Let me see what I can do, all right?”
“Right now?” He sounded so hopeful.
“Of course,” I said, calling the office, putting it on speaker.
“What?” Shaw answered.
“First, you’re on speaker. And second, your phone etiquette is for shit,” I informed him, and Luke chuckled.
“Sorry, but I thought we agreed you’d stay until after Thanksgiving.”